Ogilvy Mumbai and Sprouts Environment Trust make idols from vegetarian food ingredients that fish can consume and keeps the ocean clean

Ogilvy Mumbai and Sprouts Environment Trust have launched an initiative that could make a difference in protecting our planet from further deterioration.

Piyush Pandey, Executive Chairman & Creative Director, Ogilvy South Asia said, “What a lovely idea to make a contribution to a greener environment.”

Sprouts is a NGO based out of Mumbai that aims at creating interest, awareness and ownership of the environment and its resources amongst children and youth through education and action with the vision of achieving a sustainable environment for all.

On the final day of the Ganesh festival, idols of Lord Ganesha are immersed into the sea. The toxic materials used in making the idols pollute the sea and wreak havoc on marine life. Plaster of Paris which is basically what the idols are made from, contains substances like gypsum, sulphur and phosphorous that takes months or even years to dissolve. So they end up floating on the surface of the sea or along the coastline and soon turn into a breeding ground for epidemics. The chemical dyes and synthetic colours used in painting the idols are toxic. They release poisonous elements like lead, mercury, zinc and cadmium into the sea damaging its fragile ecosystem and killing the fish.

Sprouts is the one NGO that has been doing some amazing work every year during Ganesh Chaturthi – from beach clean-up operations post visarjan to creating papier-mâché Ganeshas.

It is to meet this objective Ogilvy India joined hands with Sprouts and came up with the idea of fish friendly Ganesha. Ogilvy came up with this idea of a non toxic Ganesha primarily crafted from vegetarian fish food that is edible and safe for fish consumption. This fish friendly Ganesha idol contains vegetarian food ingredients like wheat flour, spinach powder, refined flour and corn flour and an outer covering of clay to hold them all together. The cosmetic surface of the idols were also treated with paints made from natural material and colours such as multani mitti, turmeric powder and geru.

They launched the idea with the hashtag #GodSaveTheOcean on Facebook and Twitter. The response was immediate and overwhelming. They received calls from over 19 cities in India and even got enquiries from London, Dubai and Netherlands. They actually started this as a pilot exercise with a small number of idols and weren’t prepared for such a massive response. They have now  added more artisans to make more idols to cater to more people.

Rajiv Rao, National Creative Director, Ogilvy India said, “This is a great initiative by the NGO Sprouts Environment Trust, We are really proud to be a part of this beautiful idea. Destruction of marine life has been a cause for much concern to some of us. We hope that someday the efforts of this initiative will make us more aware and urge us to act towards protecting/saving our seas.

Credits –

Account Management: Kunal Dangarwala